Electronic devices have become increasingly smaller in recent years, and accordingly capacitors and other circuit components used in electronic devices are also becoming smaller and smaller. One group of electronic components that can meet such demand for size reduction are thin film electronic components, representative of which are thin film MIM capacitors. A thin film MIM capacitor like the one 31 shown in FIG. 18 is obtained by forming a lower electrode 33, a dielectric thin film 35 and an upper electrode 36 on an insulating substrate 32 by means of the sputtering method, evaporation method, CVD method, sol-gel method or other thin film forming process. This capacitor is called “thin film MIM capacitor” because the obtained capacitor has a structure constituted by metal (lower electrode), insulating material (dielectric thin film) and metal (upper electrode). The thin film MIM capacitor 31 having this structure provides a high capacitance because a dielectric layer of 1 μm or less in thickness can be formed with ease.
The thin film MIM capacitor 31 can be processed in any desired shape via etching or other method by using photo lithography technology. The upper electrode 36 and lower electrode 33 are exposed on the side faces of the capacitor part of the processed thin film MIM capacitor. Thus, the upper electrode 36 and lower electrode 33 are shorted easily. This is why the thin film MIM capacitor 31 is normally coated entirely with an insulating material 39.
This insulating material 39 is also formed by any thin film forming process, just like the thin film MIM capacitor 31. From the thin film MIM capacitor that has been coated with the insulating material 39, capacitance is taken out through lead conductors 40, 40′ that pass through the aforementioned insulating material 39 and connect to the upper electrode 36 and lower electrode 33, respectively. These lead conductors 40, 40′ are formed by electroplating or other method.
However, one problem has been that the insulating properties and leakage current properties of the thin film MIM capacitor 31 might deteriorate due to hydrogen that generates during the formation of this insulating material 39 and lead conductors 40, 40′. This is why the thin film MIM capacitor 31 is coated with an insulating hydrogen barrier layer 38. This insulating hydrogen barrier layer 38 is constituted by a thin film made of Al2O3, TiO2, Ta2O5, SiN, etc.    Patent Literature 1: Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2006-190716